collect

Observational data is a valuable form of research that can give researchers information that goes beyond numbers and statistics. In general, observation is a systematic way to collect data by observing people in natural situations or settings. There are many different types of observation, each with its strengths and weaknesses.…

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Over the past six months we have added a bunch of powerful features on our mobile data collection app Collect. These changes have been made with a focus on improving data quality, and making data analysis easier and more efficient for our users. Here is a quick roundup of all…

Wouldn’t it be great if you could be present on the ground, ensuring the best quality data collection? But that’s not always possible. The latest update on Collect gives you a smarter alternative! With audio audits, you can keep a check on how well your surveys are conducted so that the incoming data…

Text and numerical data is no longer enough! The ability to capture field responses in more interactive ways has become the game changer for a data collection project. Complex projects are often required to tap into different dimensions of the field reality and Collect lets you do it in an…

The thing about bad data is that it can cost you much more than money, especially when you have critical decisions to make. We know how crucial data quality is, and that’s why we have introduced a new feature on our mobile data collection app, Collect, to ensure the correctness…

My Journey to SocialCops “At its heart, engineering is about using science to find creative, practical solutions. It is a noble profession.” -Queen Elizabeth II Being a self-proclaimed maths geek and computer lover from my school days, I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t become an engineer. I…

Nothing is more frustrating than wrapping up a lengthy data collection exercise, aggregating all the data and looking through it, only to find missing data. At best, these missing values are a nuisance that can be fixed with a bit of work. At worst, they pose an intimidating threat to…

Out there in the field, every minute matters! There is a logistical cost associated with every extra minute spent, and it is only going up. To help large deployments become more efficient, we have added a missed call verification feature on our data collection app, Collect. Missed Call Verification 🔔✔️ In every…

Facing trouble with collecting high quality data? We have you covered! The recent updates on our data collection app, Collect, ensure that the data coming in from the field is of the quality that you want. With image quality alerts and response validation, you don’t need to worry about bad images,…

When I say that Impact Evaluation is history, I mean it. Some people will question this. After all, Impact Evaluation just became mainstream in the last decade, driven by great improvements in experimental design methods like randomized control trials (RCTs). So how can I say that it’s already a thing…

Who doesn’t like faster and easier data analysis? Not anyone that we know of! That’s why we have an exciting new feature on our data collection app, Collect, to ensure that data analysis is simpler and data analysts, happier. Keywords and Option Codes Dealing with long column names can be…

Our data collection platform, Collect, has been solving diverse problems for the past three years. While helping national ministries, philanthropies, corporates, and other organizations take smarter decisions, we often come across use cases — or as we like to call them, opportunities — to expand its functionality and take its…

In today’s era of ‘divide and conquer’, software development has been redefined multiple times to suit the need of the hour. Typically with small, young product teams — like the SocialCops team was in the summer of 2014 — quick prototyping is the dominant and most pressing need. The focus…

Change is a buzz word these days. Every other app and tech product want to change the world for better. This desire to change the world is great, but the million dollar question is whether the most sophisticated and advanced technology can actually succeed in making the change we want…

My name is Akshay Gujar, and I joined SocialCops as a Policy & Governance Manager in August 2016. Before SocialCops, I was part of the 2015 Maharashtra Chief Minister’s Fellowship. Fascinated by the role data can play in improving governance and policy and inspired by blog posts such as these, I joined the…

People often post random questions in our chat box. Some people ask “So what do you really do?” Some do their research and get more specific. “Are you a data collection app?”, “Are you a database?”, “Are you an analytics company?”, and “Are you a data visualization company?” are common questions.…

The ground slips out from under me and suddenly I am airborne when I really should not be. I land hard on a dusty bare field with a few sprouts of grass. That hurt and definitely did not look elegant. I have just been body checked by a 24-year-old girl.…

Building Android applications is fun and challenging. We at SocialCops built Collect — a mobile-based data collection tool, currently being used by nearly 150 organizations around the world. The ever-increasing number of users, encouraging as it is, made it difficult to scale up Collect with the existing code structure. That was when…

SocialCops recently worked with Tata Trusts as a data and technology partner to conduct two census surveys in Chandrapur (Maharashtra) and Noamundi (Jharkhand). Chandrapur and Noamundi are some of the most backward areas in their states. The areas have difficult terrain with little or no access to phone connectivity and electricity.…

Update: We are currently inviting applications for the 2018 cohort of the Data for Impact Fellowship. Learn more and apply here! I remember sitting on what was then my first train journey on the Fellowship – the Mumbai-Delhi Rajdhani on the 4th of January 2015. Winter in Mumbai was at one extreme in…

Welcome to the Collect changeblog. Here’s where we try and keep you – our users – updated with all the product changes, and explain to you how they’d affect your Data Collection processes. This week’s release 1.0.9 is a mixed bag of surprises and long awaited features. This release should definitely…

Welcome to the Collect changeblog. Here’s where we try and keep you – our users – updated with all the product changes, and explain to you how they will affect your data collection processes. This week, we are releasing a new version of the application (1.0.7) which has been updated…

Welcome to the Collect changeblog. Here’s where we try and keep you – our users – updated with all the product changes, and explain to you how they’d affect your data collection processes. Update 1: Reporting Module Reporting is the next big step in our bid to to make Collect a one-stop solution…

At SocialCops, we developed a mobile data collection tool that is now used by partners globally to collect data via mobile and run their monitoring processes. It can save money by reducing the cost of data collection by 23% for our over 150+ partners. You ask how? Let us break it down…

Only 1 out of 3 people can access the internet today. In a country like India, 81% of the population doesn’t have access to internet. At SocialCops, we aim to drive the most important decisions facing mankind through data — in most cases, these decisions heavily impact the 70% non-internet-accessing,…